MONTREAL, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- A 63-year-old Montreal man has been charged in the kidnapping and rape of a 7-year-old girl who was beaten with a hammer and threatened with a knife.
Gilles Rivard was arrested early Saturday on charges of kidnapping, forcible confinement, assault with a deadly weapon and sexual assault.
Montreal police searched house to house to find the 7-year-old victim bound and gagged in Rivard's apartment, where the child had been lured Friday night on the pretext of playing with the man's cat.
The child told police she had been hit with a hammer, threatened with a knife and sexually assaulted, the Montreal Globe and Mail reported.
"She doesn't really understand what happened, or why," the victim's father told Le Journal de Montreal. "She doesn't want to talk about it because she's in shock."
Police had to restrain other residents of the apartment building from attacking the suspect when he was arrested.
